Costa Women Blogs
Bringing her love of the Muscuoskeletal and deceptively strong thumbs meet Estelle (the Physio) Mitchell and read about her fun life and mini adventures in Spain.
Why Spain?
I got sick of the cold! I was born in Malaya and never quite got used to the cold and damp in the UK! We were debating between the South of France, South Africa and Southern Spain and then we saw our house. And here we are!
Where are you based in Spain and why should we move there too?
San Pedro de Alcantara. I love this town, busy and vibrant without being too hectic, a mix of spanish and international locals and a wonderful, friendly place!
What was your biggest challenge for your move?
Complete lack of research! We arrived with a wing and a prayer and a willingness to work hard. We were completely clueless!
What is your advice for a Costa Woman wanting to make the move?
Invest in a good lawyer and ask questions. And then more questions. And then some more!
How do you spend your days?
I spend my days following my passion – physiotherapy! I’ve been a Muscuoskeletal Specialist for over 20 years here in Spain with my own clinic and my wonderful team. With my work and my family, the wonderful friends I’ve met I’m a lucky girl! We try and have “mini adventures” as I’m rubbish at holidays. So we’ll go to shows, take helicopter rides, boat rides, circuses . . . all kinds of fun and interesting trips.
Estelle learning Flamenco with Granada Concierge in Moclín, Andalucia, Spain
Something you have achieved?
Being a physiotherapist (40+ years!) is my single greatest and continuing achievement!
Who would you invite to your special dinner party?
Prof. Lorimer Moseley, David Butler and Perry Mason (Stop Chasing Pain) – for professional hilarity! And my family and we’d have sushi and cava! (like my birthday!)
What is your secret weapon?
My deceptively strong thumbs!
Favourite saying?
Discs don’t slip dammit!
One thing you had to bring to Spain?
Photographs of my parents in Malaya
Favourite book?
Explain Pain by Lorimer Moseley!
Something you would tell your younger self?
Have even more fun!
Where can we find out more?
You can find Estelle (The Physio) Mitchell via our website TheBodyworksClinic.com
Thanks Estelle!
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We are living in exciting times now, as all Humanity have the opportunity to choose to evolve, expand & raise their consciousness and move out of the game arena in our old 3D reality of fear and lack, control and dominance, lies and manipulation into a new reality of freedom, unity and harmony.
This extraordinary opportunity we call Awakening and Ascension, is not an event, but an individual journey where each person can choose to be aware of a bigger picture that is unfolding and becoming more and more evident everyday worldwide.
A bigger picture of how each person truly is powerful and magnificent, of how each is born Sovereign and free to choose how to live a most wonderful life. A bigger picture of how we can acknowledge, embrace and release old energies that no longer serve, sensing the joy, love and peace that lie beyond the worries, concerns, pains, struggles, limitations and fear.
It is an opportunity for everyone to step away from the victim mind, recognise repetitive patterns, energies of past trauma, wounds and hurts, and allow self to feel that inner essence that has always been there, the core of self, the Divine self, who is… love, joy and peace. AND because of our concerns, worries and busy-ness we have buried this inner part of our true self with layers of pain, struggle and disease.
How to release your wounds and hurts…
Fully feel all your uncomfy and negative feelings. Recognise them as energy; part of your Human dual experience that needs to be recognised and embraced by you and embrace them with your IAM presence that infinitely flows through you as you breathe… in and out.
Try not to feel afraid when you feel something bad or painful and just recognise it as part of your experience that has got caught up in the drama of your mind and the illusion of feeling powerless, unworthy and invaluable.
Feel and recognise the loving IAM presence that flows through you, this is your loving power, which can transmute anything bad and negative, just by your Divine embrace. It’s like holding yourself, like a mother holding her child; with compassion and unconditional love.
Recognise the sadness you feel, all the emotions, the anger, the misunderstandings, the untruths. Remembering misunderstandings and untruths are not aligned with your magnificence, your richness and power. Remember, it is in believing that you are a victim, a poor me or missing something, that you keep yourself in this vicious cycle, loop of pain, struggle and limitation because you believe you are not a magnificent and powerful being, that you are not unique and a Sovereign Divine being of light here for a Human experience. You were never told or taught this.
How the LIGHT is serving your Awakening & Ascension…
This is an amazing time for everyone to recognise how the light we are receiving, is breaking down the illusion we have lived under and allows everyone to remember our origins. Yes, you are God too, originally perfectly balanced in good and bad, evil and good, female and male, black and white, warm and cold. You are balanced.
It is a time to feel it all, thoughts, emotions, even panic, to resist nothing and remember who you are… a being of light who is purposefully now bringing to the surface all your fears and struggles to feel, recognise and embrace before its release or transmutation.
It’s not about owning your fears, because it is not who you are. You are a light being, not the pain, limitation, nor the panic. It’s about embracing these dense energies, the traumas or wounds that visit you to be loved and accepted. It’s about allowing your love to dissolve all.
It’s about just being with yourself! It’s not easy because you cannot run away, take a pill to make it go away or find someone to resolve it. You must sit with it, with no resistance and allow love to be the game changer. Allow love to dissolve it all.
Allow yourself to always come back to the breath, feeling relaxed, being conscious of your breath and embracing everything you feel. No resistance. The longer you sit with the breath and your feelings, you can actually feel your love, your IAM presence dissolving the pain or the fear. Allowing yourself to relax a little bit more.
There is nothing for you to do, but just be aware and observe how your busy mind or emotions gradually get less… because when there is no resistance and only acceptance, they automatically transmute. Just loving you, recognising that loving feeling is always around you and knows you like nobody else. If you have questions or seek solutions, ask and in some way you will understand the answer.
While you are being conscious of the breath, it will help you practice to be aware of yourself and your life 24/7… in each NOW moment. Allowing your Divine spirit guide you, allowing the human vessel embrace all the feelings that are ready to be released, the wounds, the traumas, because you are what you have been looking for all your life.
We’ve been told to search for it out there but its always been right under your nose. The answer is you. Your love is enough, you are enough. However you are, is the perfection, the perfection of you, an essential part of our magnificent world. Your magnificent self!
Give those shoulders a shrug and take the opportunity of this time to receive the light, the powerful light and allow it to shift and shake up your humanness, your conditioning! It’s time to let go of all those patterns, concerns and fears.
Allow the love, the joy and peace within to appear. For you to feel that, to be joyous, no matter the circumstances. Allow the joy to seep through the situation of your human life. Breathing in the life you are. Being grateful for this opportunity to move from that fearful and dull limited reality to one of harmony. Allowing yourself to feel that.
The more you practice the more joyful, peaceful and loving you become and this attracts more like into your life and you will attract NewEarth, but first you must feel it within and before you feel it within you must release the woes of the past, the trauma and drama. To release it, or transmute, you must embrace it, recognise and accept all your feelings, thoughts, emotions, no resistance. Only love for everything that comes through you.
Breathing gently yet deeply, pushing that tummy out! Being there for yourself. being magnificent you, loving yourself, being ok. I thank you so much for being here, for listening to yourself, to being here for yourself.
© Barbara Franken… Creative Visionary & MasterCreatorInspiring New Energy Consciousness & Multi-Dimensional Living
A True Magical Children’s Story about Love and Life. To inspire our children to connect deeply within themselves and the natural world around them, and remember the truth of their being ‘Sparkles of Love’, here to bring love and harmon into the world, quite simply by being themselves and enjoying their life in each moment. Click here to read more information & link to purchase.
A paperback & digital book is available from all major online stores… Amazon & Apple
I share my own magical journey, exploring Who IAM with the help of nine elemental beings and expand from a world of fear, struggle and limitation into a New Energy Consciousness of love, grace and freedom. It is in this loving space that I discover my Divine and All Loving self and allow myself to integrate together as one Body Consciousness… a DivineHumanBeing and Magnificent MasterCreator who expresses and creates heart and soul passion on the physical plane and beyond.
Are YOU ready to join our online MasterCreatorClass… a 21 day dedication to YOU, committing to your Awakening & Ascension and fulfilling YOUR new role as MasterCreator, a New Energy pioneer creating NewEarth from within. You can sign up to participate here.
Money raised from my books and class allows my charity Conciencia Magnifica hold free local Creative Projects for Children & Adults in Benalmadena, Costa Del Sol, Spain. Read more about my charity and how you can help!
There would always be a reason not to move to Spain so Liana Falconer and her partner decided ‘just do it’. Read her story
Why did you choose Spain to live?
We had a holiday home in Calahonda and decided in 2020 to make it our main residence because we loved the weather and outdoor lifestyle. We both are business owners and could work from any location and we always felt healthier and happier when we were here.
Where are you based and why should we live there too?
I am based in Calahonda and live very close to the sea. i think anyone considering moving to Spain should choose this area because of its proximity to both Malaga and Marbella. I also love the boardwalk that runs between La Cala and Calahonda which allows us to cycle and enjoy leisurely picturesque views of the coastline. It is a melting pot of nationalities from all over the world and I really feel very much at home here.
What has been your biggest challenge for the move?
The biggest challenge was making the decision to leave when we did however we also felt that there would always be a reason not to do it and so together my partner and I took a chance, moved over and we have never looked back.
What is your advice for Women thinking about making the move?
My advice to women thinking about making the move would be not to over think it and perhaps come for an extended holiday out of season just to get an idea of what it’s like during the winter here.
How do you spend your days?
During Covid I have had to reinvent myself completely as the business I owned in Ireland was a hospitality one and was closed entirely due to the pandemic.
I took the time to re educate myself and have become an internationally recognised Chopra certified mind body health instructor as well as a meditation instructor and am at present studying to become a total wellbeing and Ayurvedic lifestyle coach.
I have just opened my new business www.ritualsmarbella.com here in Marbella and I am also offering online masterclasses and workshops. I have always tried to see the glass as half full as opposed to half empty and have chosen to use Covid as an opportunity to embrace a completely different lifestyle and a new business opportunity.
Something you are grateful for?
I am very grateful that I have such a supportive partner who has encouraged me all the way and takes such an interest in my new venture.
Your dinner party – who would you invite and what would you eat?
I have always admired strong independent women and the divine feminine inside all of us! if I had a dinner party and could invite a person I admire it would be Oprah Winfrey. She has always inspired me with her projects and how in her capacity she is constantly trying to make the world a better place.
She also introduced me to another inspirational person, Deepak Chopra who I would have at my dinner party. I have loved every minute spent on my certifications at his centre and find him inspirational, someone that wants to empower everyone to be a better and happier person.
We would eat simple fresh barbecued fish, Spanish tomatoes with garlic and olive oil and Patatas Bravo with lots of Alioli!
Your greatest accomplishment?
My children or my greatest accomplishment. I have been blessed with two daughters and I am very proud of them both.
Song of your life?
Nothing compares to you by Sinead O’ Connor It reminds me of my partner, Ron.
What did you have to bring to Spain and could never give away?
Lots of pictures of my girls. I don’t get to see them everyday so I love walking into the kitchen or the living room and seeing them there. It puts a smile on my face.
Favourite read?
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani
Where can we find out more about your new project?
www.ritualsmarbella.com
Thank you Liana
If you want to share YOUR story with us, please complete the online questionnaire here
Using the pandemic as a time to settle into Spain, meet Charlotte Nyberg who fell in love with the Nerja area within 2 days of arrival and has decided to create a life and business here to share with others.
Did you choose Spain, or did Spain choose you?
Since I was 25 years old, I had a dream of living in a sunny place. Somehow it feels like Spain and the language are running in my veins. So my dream became my goal and I aimed to move in 2019. As young it felt far away but suddenly it was 2012.
I had been running a riding school for 16 years with my husband by my side, and our two daughters. I educated myself in healthy living, how to eat healthy, mental strength, training and yoga. I also took over a Laser clinic from 2014. We didn’t do much research before. One trip to south of Italy, and then the south coast of Spain. So in June 2019 we came to Nerja for the first time.
Two days and we were in love. Day three we even found our dream house in between Nerja and Frigiliana. In 5 minutes we said yes to the place that we now named Villa Sunshine \u2600\ufe0f
We went back to Sweden and sold everything and moved here in January 2020.
Now, many would think; so sad just before the pandemic. But for us it has been the best time to get to know our new home and to transform it to a nice tranquil place to be at. We now take groups for retreats, mostly yoga, but also for hiking, exercise, eating healthy or just to relax. We have also created a B&B. My husband Jorgen loves to cook and gets so many compliments. I try to grow our own vegetables, do yoga classes and fix the rooms. We feel so blessed and just love life at the sunny costa of Spain.
You are based between Nerja and Frigiliana why is it so special?
We are close to everything, mountains, sea, nice town. Here everything and everyone is easy going and friendly. The weather \u2600\ufe0f
What has been your biggest challenge?
To move without our daughters. We hang out through FaceTime.
What advice would you give to women thinking about making the move?
Live your dream instead of dreaming your life.
How do you spend your days?
At VillaSunshine.nu we take care of our guests, fix the garden, cook the food and have yoga classes and retreats. Of course one or more siestas is doable as well.
Something you are proud of?
Everything; taking the step, living my dream and learning all new things in a new country.
Who would you have to your special dinner party and why?
Dalai Lama – he’s knowledge , Richard Gere – sexy, Julia Roberts- pretty and fun, Carolina Gynning – crazy, My Father – because I miss him (by skype from heaven) My husband Jorgen my other half that makes me whole.
The Mantra you live by?
Always be true and do your best.
Favourite song?
Let the sunshine in
One thing you had to bring to Spain with you?
My husband
Favourite Book
Brida by Paulo Coellho
Something you would tell your younger self?
Love your self
Where can we find out more about your project?
Website Villa Sunshine
Instagram @villasunshinenerja
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/villasunshinenerja/
Thank you Charlotte!
If you want to share YOUR story with us, please complete the online questionnaire here
Are you wondering how to keep your cool this Summer? The ancient science of Ayurveda provides practical tools and tips to stay cool during the summer months.
Meet Sharon who fell in love with Spain in the 1970s (and more recently a Spaniard) and believes that women can achieve anything. “When I allow life to unfold before me, amazing things happen.”
Did you choose Spain, or did Spain choose you?
I have to admit, Spain, for me, has always felt like home. The love affair began when I was 7 years old and my mum, tired of the unpredictable weather in the UK, wanted to guarantee her tan and outdoor lifestyle by venturing into the 70’s package holidays. We never looked back, and when I was 20, I left the UK to work in a piano bar in Puerto Banus. I was there for about 9 months and it was a wonderful time to be in Marbella.
I later came to Spain as a music teacher in Madrid and Malaga. Fast forward to today, after a 10 year stint in Haywards Heath working as a HR manager and company director of a small business support company and owning a shared ownership property in the UK, we decided to sell our portion and buy a house outright in Spain. The only thing is, we didn’t want a mortgage (I was still on a UK payroll and my husband had been made redundant) so we bought what we could afford outright in a beautiful area of Spain, Aracena, in the mountains of Huelva.
We found the perfect house for us. Three bedrooms, beautiful terrace and views of the ‘Sierra’ great connections to all of the hikes in the area (I love walking) and about 10 minutes drive to the main town. Then just 4 months later we were in lockdown. We’d left our daughters in the UK and our plans to return every 3 months to see them were thwarted.
After 18 months living in that idyllic and picturesque white sierra village, I found myself without a job (the business support company set up Spanish construction companies in the UK so the pandemic did finish us off) my husband without work and wondering what the next step might be. Luckily, as a qualified transformational coach, I was able to work online and I also did email marketing and copywriting for Animas, the school where I studied to be a coach.
However, although I appreciate that I found work helping with marketing and copywriting etc, working online at home alone for 18 months became somewhat lonely, so when I received a phone call from.an acquaintance who had just moved to La Cala asking me if I wanted to bring my coaching skills together with her beautician/esthetician and healing skills and start something on the Costa del Sol, I jumped at the chance. I knew the area well and relished the idea of being around people again.
So we moved to a 2 bed apartment in Riviera del Sol where we share with Kiran (soon to be Kiran and Martin when he comes to teach at the Benalmadena British College). Rather than feeling short on actual space (which in reality we are a bit) I actually feel more spacious within me. I look out at the sea every day and I’m offered that reflection of space and the beauty of this area. I’m truly in love with what nature offers in this area. The sea is always different – it’s colour, it’s stillness, it’s movements – the full moon reflecting on the surface, the distant mountains on the African continent and the fog that sometimes rolls in from the horizon.
I’ve always been happiest around mountains and this area doesn’t disappoint either – everywhere you look, there are hills or mountains – it’s truly beautiful. We now hope to rent our house in Aracena for weekend hikers so that we can stay here.
I am passionate about helping parents to access their innate leadership skills from a place of love and wisdom within them so that anxiety and mental health issues in teens is supported as much as possible. I’m deeply concerned about the increasing substance abuse and self-abuse in teens and young adults, and I feel that we, as parents, can do much to create a foundation of harmony by modeling emotional intelligence, equanimity and loving leadership skills to our children before or during their teen years. That’s what I plan to do here on the coast as well as online.
I use a very unique combination of coaching and voice therapy (reconnecting to the body by tuning into the vibrations of the voice and willfully changing the energetic quality of those vibrations to heal and to communicate from the whole body and not just the head where the emotional triggers and reactions occur. Building fitness in conscious presence where a response to what is needed is always the default expression ensures long lasting and consistent transformation ).
I am also working with Kiran in our new beauty inside and out business called Evolve Health and Beauty Mijas Costa (inside The London & Co hair and nail salon in La Cala) Kiran has many wonderful beauty machines that do amazing things to your skin to maintain it’s elasticity and tone, prevent aging and plump up already matured skin. I’m a fan of facials and that’s my particular forté.
Where are you now based and why would you recommend it?
We’re based in Riviera del Sol. I love this area because it’s a little quieter than the towns such as La Cala (an easy bus trip or 5 minute drive away) But it doesn’t disappoint the young either with it’s trendy beach clubs. Up in the hills you have the most amazing views of the sea, you’re a stones throw from busy Fuengirola where you’ll find any shop your heart could desire and Marbella with it’s classy shops and beautiful promenade is about 20 minutes drive.
What I really love is how you can walk to La Cala one way along the wooden promenade or to Cabopino in the other direction. There are sandy areas and areas that are more rocky with much wildlife to view.
Just yesterday my husband and I just rested our elbows on the wooden boardwalk fencing and watched the seabirds coming in to land on the little rocks as the planet slowly tilted away from the sun.
What was the biggest challenge to your move?
I refer to moving over from the UK to Huelva as moving from Huelva to Riviera del Sol has not really had it’s challenges other than physical space. Our biggest challenge was leaving our daughters. My eldest has a long term relationship and has a recording deal (she’s a singer) in London so there was no way she was leaving that. My youngest daughter didn’t want to leave either, although now she’s changed her mind and is coming out here in August to stay.
We got over the challenge by making schedule to travel to the UK every 3 months but that’s not been possible of course. We speak daily on FaceTime and hope that in the future we’ll be able to travel more.
What advice do you have for someone making the move?
If you have an established online business I wouldn’t hesitate to move. Finding a job here that pays as well as the UK is just not the reality. Do your homework with regards to how self-employment works here as it’s more expensive than in the UK. But oh my “Summertime and the living is easy – bureaucracy is slow but the bougainvillea is high!”
How do you spend your days?
I get up at 5.30 to write my book – it’s all about how to bring leadership skills to parents of preteens and teens and how to access wise responses so that there is more harmony in the home and children are empowered to face the challenges of growing up. I then write my posts on FB for the day and 4 days of the week I go to our beauty room at Evolve Health & Beauty Mijas Costa within the London & Co hair and nail salon. There I give facials – facial massage, emotional release facial healing, inner voice therapy, microdermabrasion and Genie Complete non surgical facelifts which I personally love (it really is a genie of a machine!)
In between I work online helping with social media marketing and copywriting for a client in the UK who has a business mentoring membership for women.
I’m a singer. pianist and songwriter too. I used to play in hotels and restaurants along the coast but now I prefer writing songs and recording them – however I have a private party coming up and perhaps a golf club gig – so I may be doing some more gigs before long.
I was involved in a pro-bono coaching initiative in the UK for those affected by Covid 19. It has come to a completion now but it was wonderful to be of assistance in that project and I continue to coach young adults for free (that’s my passion and I charge parents so that I can continue to assist young people who perhaps aren’t able to afford coaching themselves)
What do you most appreciate?
I think what I most appreciate is how I’ve been able to relinquish control and fear. When I look back, I balk at the fear I had, especially with authority. My confidence has grown so much since I began moving more from intuition and letting go of outcomes.
I feel women can achieve anything, but if there’s an attachment to an outcome, for me, it often ends in disappointment. When I allow life to unfold before me, amazing things happen. I, myself lost everything after the 2008 crash, my home and belongings and started again with two young children – I studied in HR and was appointed company director by the CEO just 7 years after having lost everything – it wasn’t determination, it was getting my head down, being open and not trying to control things.
Your special dinner party – who would you invite and why?
I have beautiful friends so they would always be my first choice – with regards to famous people, Stephen Fry for a great conversation – just love him, Mike Myers to make us all laugh and Jill Scott the singer and actress to entertain us with her wonderful voice. The food would be gluten and dairy free – full of veggies and with Indian spices (my favourite food)
Your secret weapon is..
My soul – when you learn to listen and respond from there, you will always be responding from wisdom and not in reaction!
Favourite song and quote?
Amazing Grace – I love the empowering yet humble words.
I can’t choose a quote because I love so many but here’s one from me – “Break the dams of yesterday and flow into the ocean of the present that always offers magnificence to each and every one of us”
One thing you had to bring with you to Spain?
My husband because he’s Spanish lol – no, really he’s my rock and we’ve been together 30 years – he is the kindest and gentlest soul.
Favourite read?
I love so many books it’s really hard to choose a favourite – I love Rachel Joyce (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye) because I love how things just unfolded for him with no plan and no control – it inspired me.
Something you would tell younger Sharon?
Be more humble – realise that you know nothing and begin from there. Life isn’t something to control it’s something to witness and bring your all to.
Where can we find out more about your projects?
FB page for Evolve Health & Beauty Mijas Costa
FB page for Gorgeous Hearts (coaching parents of tweens and teens)
Thank you Sharon!
If you want to share YOUR story with us, please complete the online questionnaire here